The Southland's clean air agency has joined eight Eastern states urging a federal court to reject an industry challenge to new standards for cleaner diesel trucks and diesel fuel.

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has established stringent requirements for diesel trucks and diesel fuel that will reduce smog-forming pollutants and cancer-causing soot by 90 percent starting in 2007," said Barry Wallerstein, executive officer for the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

"These new standards are particularly important in Southern California, where many minority and low-income communities are significantly impacted by diesel truck traffic.

"We are urging the federal court to reject a challenge by the trucking, diesel engine and petroleum industries to EPA's rules," Wallerstein said.

On Dec. 14, AQMD along with attorneys general for the states of Connecticut, Delaware, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island filed a legal brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, urging the court to uphold EPA's diesel regulations. The Washington, D.C.-based State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators and the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officers, and its legal counsel, the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University, coordinated preparation of the legal brief.

According to EPA officials, who issued the regulations earlier this year, the diesel rules will prevent thousands of premature deaths and avoid countless cases of asthma nationwide by cutting diesel soot and nitrogen oxides — a byproduct of combustion and building block of ozone as well as particulate pollution.

"AQMD is taking an aggressive approach to reducing diesel pollution through its fleet rules, which will shift public and some private fleets of transit buses, refuse trucks, street sweepers and other vehicles from dirty diesel to cleaner-burning fuels," Wallerstein said.

At the state level, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in 1998 declared diesel particulate emissions a toxic air contaminant. Subsequently, CARB has adopted a comprehensive Diesel Risk Reduction Plan to cut emissions from heavy-duty vehicles and stationary diesel engines across the state.

"In addition to our efforts at the local and state level, we need these federal diesel measures to regulate interstate trucks and to ensure a level playing field for the California trucking industry," Wallerstein said.

The lawsuit challenging EPA's diesel rules was filed by Mack Trucks, the National Petroleum and Refiners Association and other diesel engine makers and fuel producers. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for Feb. 26, 2002.

AQMD is the air pollution control agency for Orange County and major portions of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

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This page updated: March 01, 2004
URL: http://www.aqmd.gov/news1/Diesel_brief.htm